Thursday, September 21, 2006

Backflips and Tornadoes

Ok, I know what a backflip is. Most figure skaters know what it is, but not many dare try it. After all, it is an illegal element as far as ISU is concerned.

In skating, the backflip takes off quite like a flip (or a lutz), except that the rotation is on a horizontal axis rather than the vertical one. Meaning, you pretty much go head-over-heels. Surya Bonaly is one of the rare ones who can still land this on one foot. Most others land on both feet.

But it was only today that I found out there is such a thing as a tornado in skating, and Michael Weiss has been doing it since years back! This is a backflip, with a twist - on revolution on the horizontal axis, together with one revolution on the body axis... all done in the air![Weiss did it in an exhibition program from 2003 on YouTube]

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These are my personal views about figure skating here in Singapore. They do not represent the position of the ice skating rink, the figure skating assocation, nor any of the figure skating clubs in Singapore.